When I was growing up, I figured I was pretty much the worst. I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, I was a failure. As I got a little older, I realized that a lot of young people feel like that, but in my ego-centric teen years, I was sure I cornered the market on craptitude. During my junior year in high school, I secretly wanted the lead in the school play but was convinced of my craptastical inability. But I auditioned along with everyone else anyway. The day that the casting was announced, the director called out the decision for each role and handed out scripts while I worried that I would projectile vomit my heart all over the clearly more talented thespians around me.

We got through the smaller parts and my dreams of landing a role were dashed. Then it got interesting. The girl that everyone assumed would be the lead was cast in a different role. I looked around trying to figure out who was left to cast the lead role, except that there didn’t seem to be anyone left.

Spoiler alert: it was me. I got the part.

I was excited, yes, but I was genuinely terrified. It was a big responsibility to take on and I had in no way proved that I could handle it. But the director said something that changed my life. She said: I know you can do this. So I did. And not only did I perform that role, but I also went on to earn a degree in theatre and pursue a professional career and now I teach kids to act. Her words that night changed me simply and profoundly because she recognized my fear and doubt. But instead of using those emotions to reinforce my beliefs about myself, she chose to use them to inspire change. She lent me the courage of her confidence until I could establish my own courage and confidence. It was the first time I can ever remember someone not only telling me that they believed in me but showing me that they believed in me. I owe her a debt of gratitude that I’m still paying forward to my own students.

Wily lady that she is, that director orchestrated a long con of pathos to show me what I was capable of. I’ve examined the danger of ignoring pathos and of how it can be used to perpetrate unspeakable crimes against humanity. But how can pathos be wielded to accomplish good? The best leaders, teachers, and mentors have a vision of how to make things better and the crux of their work lies in inspiring others to help them achieve it. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the Civil Rights movement, not through force and violence, but with the bigger-picture goal of peace and harmony:

“[O]ne day…little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers…And when this happens…we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”1

King reached past righteous anger and fear directly for the most cherished hope: freedom in unity. His emotional appeal showed a future of children playing together in harmony. The beauty of that appeal inspired his followers to resist peacefully to keep the vision intact. King’s pathos was powerful; it still inspires today, fifty years after his death.

As we’ve discussed before, fiction relies on pathos to make an impact on its readers, but the pathos used in fiction can also be a call to action. The early books in the Harry Potter series coalesce around Albus Dumbledore as the leader, and for the students, he is an honest broker in juxtaposition to many of the other adult characters that either condescend, lie, or abandon them to very real danger. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore addresses the student body after the death of one of their classmates. He tells them that the student was in fact murdered by the series’ central villain, Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore invokes the students’ grief and feelings of powerlessness to give them the tools to show that they are, in fact, not powerless:

“The Ministry of Magic…does not wish me to tell you this. It is possible that some of your parents will be horrified that I have done so – either because they will not believe that Lord Voldemort has returned, or because they think I should not tell you so, young as you are. It is my belief, however, that the truth is generally preferable to lies, and that any attempt to pretend that Cedric died as the result of an accident, or some sort of blunder of his own, is an insult to his memory.”2 (Rowling 920)

Dumbledore gains the trust and respect, indeed the following, of many students in this speech because he treats them with dignity. He appeals to their desire for honesty and lends calm in a sea of chaos. By giving them this information, he enables the students not only to participate in their own community but to take responsibility for it. He guides them through grief and anger with a sense of purpose and unity rather than fear and paralysis:

“I say to you all, once again — in the light of Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” (Rowling 922)

By making an emotional appeal to the students and elevating their commitment to each other rather than ignoring or manipulating their fear, Dumbledore cultivates unity and we see his purpose and ideals carried out by the students even after he is gone. They pick up Dumbledore’s mantle to create Dumbledore’s Army, whose resistance proves instrumental in fighting genocide through the end of the series.

J.K. Rowling’s impressive use of pathos in her Harry Potter series moved an entire generation of readers. Readers were so inspired that they are making the real world a better place by engendering the ideals of justice and equality that they encountered in this fictional series. They are taking tangible steps toward positive change with organizations like the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), whose mission states:

“THE HARRY POTTER ALLIANCE TURNS FANS INTO HEROES. We’re changing the world by making activism accessible through the power of story. Since 2005, we’ve engaged millions of fans through our work for equality, human rights, and literacy.”3

You can read more about the HPA’s work and get involved here. Groups like the HPA exemplify the power of emotional appeal in creating real-world action. In examining Aristotle’s construction of rhetorical argument requiring ethos, pathos, and logos, we cannot underestimate how vital pathos is to make an argument’s connection with the heart and ultimately, with the mind. Our emotions are a powerful factor in determining the stances we take; pathos is perhaps the most powerful factor. It is our responsibility to question where and when and why pathos is used and for whose betterment or detriment. When we come to difficult crossroads, this discernment will serve us well. As Dumbledore reminds us:

“Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

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Artwork: "Hand" by unclelkt is licensed under CC0 Creative Commons.

1)      King, Martin Luther. “‘I Have a Dream," Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” King Encyclopedia | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, 28 Aug. 1963, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom.
2)     Rowling, J. K., and Mary GrandPre. “Thirty-Seven, The Beginning.” Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Arthur A. Levine Thorndike Press Large Print Young Adult Series, 2000.
3)     “The Harry Potter Alliance.” The Harry Potter Alliance, www.thehpalliance.org/.
4)     Heyman, David, and Steven Kloves. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005.